Greed and stupidity are two very unattractive traits.
The music industry's attempt to tax internet service providers for users downloading illegally copied songs is nothing short of stupidity - motivated by greed. It would have more luck winning the lottery than passing this off as a good idea - if for no other reason than it is totally impractical.
"Musicians are losing money to copyright," the music industry whines. So according to one industry group, the whole world is supposed to stop what they're doing, shed a tear or two and give those sensitive songwriters special attention because they are the only people to be hit by copyright infringement.
Unlikely.
What were these people thinking as they sat around a table together? Imagine if Royal Mail became liable for all the pirated music sent over its postal system, or for somebody posting some illegally photocopied pages from a textbook.
Stupidity can almost be forgiven, though they really should have tried to understand the technical implications of their idea. But greed is a little harder to let go.
The music industry has been overcharging people for years. It has always had a problem with people copying music, be it by tape, CD or file sharing. Now music media prices have dropped with the help of the internet, those musical fat cats are whinging the food has been snatched from their mouths.
Not that we're saying copyright infringement is a good idea. It's just that the music industry has had its fair share of cake already. And now it wants the entire UK internet community to pander to its needs.
Saying that, the ISPs have come out grumbling with the same response issued every time someone accuses them of being irresponsible about content. 'Not our problem, mate.'
In this single case it actually works for ISPs to give this response as they have been lucky enough to be challenged by an unusually dumb proposal.
Comments
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1. Mark Hosey
The music industry is in for a hard time. More and more musicians are self publishing on the net. If they can't sell their tracks they give them away in exchange for the publicity they acquire. Many bands are now making their main living by playing concerts and events with a secondary living being made selling material direct from their web sites and earning royalties on public performance of their home made recordings.
I fear the demise of the present day music industry is almost upon us. Not that I'm all that bothered by that prospect!
(However, if they would like an out of the box solution to their problem they should feel free to contact me!)
2. anonymous
Tax tax tax. Every other industry has had to cut costs and shed personnel in order to stay competetive. The net is one way of distributing content with little cost overheads - use it! Just maybe then the cost of music will drop to a point where it becomes uneconomical to copy or pirate. Then and only then will I start to buy music again instead of listening to the abundance of radio stations.
3. Phil
If this ever came about then we would be perfectly justified in downloading as much music as we require as we will have paid for it.
Your right, this is the stupidest thing ever thought up by anyone, but then of course the music industry bosses aren't just greedy, they are grossly stupid as well.
4. Richard Peters
Leaner times for the music fat cats? Its a big shame: they want my heart to bleed for them but I can only hear my wallet rejoicing.